Live Thread: Cavs @ Suns
2024-04-03It’s hump day, Cavs fans. The Cavs have a late one tonight, taking in the valley of the Sun. The Suns are in must-win logjam, currently in eighth place two games out of fifth and just 1.5 games ahead of the Lakers. They’ll be without Grayson Allen and Damion Lee. Cleveland is still hanging on to the third spot by the skin of their teeth. They’ll be without without Okoro, Wade, Craig Porter Junior, and Ty Jerome – who my phone now autopredicts to end these injury summaries. It should be a good battle. Let’s hope Donovan Mitchell stays on the road to recovery and the Cavs bigs continue their dominance of last game. Go Cavs.
LT up
Shane Bieber season ending surgery.
I AM GUESSING WE NEED 2 MORE WINS TO SECURE 3rd SEED
boy a real opportunity if we can steal one or both in LA (seems unlikely).
Knicks / Bucks Sunday. Suspect the Knicks get run.
Bucks play the Magic twice after that.
You could see the #2 seed with 33 losses
also with Heat v. Pacers Sunday…
Gotta agree. On paper, the Cavs *should* win their last three. If they could take one this weekend. And the Bucks have a pretty tough schedule.
Knicks drop to Bulls
Wow. Including this one, the Knicks play the Bulls three times. I assumed they would win them all. And Randle is out for the season.
We had this discussion when the Bulls beat us in OT and the comment section freaked.
They aren’t terrible and there’s a lot of difference between a 38 win team and a 20 win team. Drummond, DDR, Caruso, White, Ayo, Vuc aren’t contending but they are all dudes who can beat their matchup on any given night. And with the Knicks you are basically only really guarding one guy
Bucks loose to the Raptors who were on a 15 game losing streak. We are 1 game back.
fully healthy Magic team absolutely aced by the Hornets.
What is going on? Unbelievable. Magic fans must be very frustrated.
Orlando is super guardable if you stay in front and vertical on Wagner and Banchero
SMH over Bronny James declaring for the NBA. He’s not even a starting college player. He has a heart condition. He should go have a real collegiate experience at a nice school like St. Mary’s or something. God help him with all these unrealistic expectations.
Eh. He’s gauging his draft worthiness, but I bet he goes back to school.
like Duquesne, where Dru Joyce III just became coach.
A very nice time for multiple days off before another afternoon game. LA isnt much of a party city right? 🤦♂️
Going to be tough to hold onto third. Sixth might be better place than 4 or 5.
Based on their place in the standings, both the Lakers and the Clippers are going to be motivated to play. I’d love it if we took one. Gonna be an exciting week here as things get sorted out.
Miami and NY on B2Bs tomorrow, Indy v. OKC.
if it breaks right, I think we might be in a decent place re: seeding, if the sixth seed is tied at 35 losses and the Clips are banged up.
Playoff Jimmy and the Heat have a six minute FG drought against the Sixers in the last 6:40 of regulation, fall into play in while trying desperately (per Spo pregame) to stay out of play in
but I know you meant to mention K Love with 11points ,16 rebounds and 4 assists in 19 mins,
He has had some good games. I don’t think he was part of the closing lineup
Just yanking you.He played good.They fell apart .Its a shame they couldn’t both lose.
DASILVA —(COLORADO) —HIS TOURNEY SUCCESS UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE CAVS HAS MOVED HIM UP IN THE DRAFT ABOUT 10 SPOTS———S-H—I—T ——I WAS REALLY HOPING/ “ SALIVATING “ THE CAVS WOULD GET HIM ————HEY WE KEEP LOSING WE STILL MIGHT GET HIM
You always find the silver lining…………
KOBY GO HIRE LINDSAY GOTLIEB ——SHE KNOWS THE X’s / O’s ——- PLAYER s RESPECT HER —— IF NOT AS THE HEAD COACH—- MAKE HER TOP ASSISTANT
CANT MAKE SENSE OUT OF “ NONSENSE “ —- REALLY MOTIVATES SAM ALSO FOR HIS PERFORMANCE THE NIGHT BEFORE—WTF JB 😡
wouldn’t have made a difference and not sure spending more time getting cooked is motivating either
I love how Sam got pulled for dumb things that weren’t his fault after getting cooked on D a couple times, but was mainly the victim of other people’s turnovers in the plus minus stat. JB goes back to 7 man rotation on a back to back. Make it make sense.
why would it matter if he played Mook or Merrill 15 minutes instead of 5, either for the outcome of this game or for anything that will happen in the playoffs?
I didn’t watch this so I won’t comment on any specific player getting pulled. But this is not the first time recently JB tightened the rotation on the second night of a back to back. That just seems like a bad idea period. And it doesn’t matter whether it translates to playoffs or not. They need to get to the team “to” the playoffs in reasonable health. What good is the short rotation accomplishing, especially when it looks like the score was out of hand early?
agree.
and, on an “out of reach” situation on the second night of a B2B, take out all the starters. why tire them out and risk injury?.
short answer is “Mitchell reps”
Longer answer is we didn’t have tons of bodies anyways: we were short three rotation guys anyways and kept making runs – and it’s not like we never came back from 20 down before.
In general a longer rotation on a B2B is good and JB should do more of it. In this game on this trip with two rest days coming I can see why you’d keep the starters going
SO WHICH LA GAME DO WE GO “ ALL IN “ —- NO WAY WE ARE WINNING BACK/ BACK
gut is clips. one more day of rest and they always have some weird injury stuff happening
AGREE WITH U JASON——- WE CAN T GIVE DG AWAY/ HAVE TO GET A SOLID RETURN—- MIGHT WAIT UNTIL SEASON IS ON ITS WAY NEXT SEASON—— SEE IF DG CAN GET HIS “ MOJO “ BACK AND HIS TRADE VALUE INCREASES
low key the action will be around trade deadline next year. otherwise we are selling low on a lot of guys, especially if there’s underperformance in the playoffs
vert in particular will be a guy you could see having more value at the deadline as an injury replacement / rental and having value there. sort of like Buddy H
DONT LIKE TO HEAR THAT NEWS FOR ANY PLAYER/ TEAM
2nd night of a b2b, sure. But we got shellacked with the starting 5 out there.
If I want to make big changes (and I think we need to), it is DG & Vert. Both are good players who will win you some games, but far too inconsistent for $50 mil.
Now, cap-wise, it would have to be a trade,,and I’m not sure what you get back.
DG can develop consistency. Vert probably can’t.
Vert and the pick and Wade probably gets you a really interesting piece.
Randle out for the season after Knicks drop three in a row.
Only 4 second half shot attempts for Mobley.
Despite the loss, we are still in the 3 seed.
yeah, when you watch some of the other teams, you are really seeing cracks exposed. not as dramatic as our alternating good wins with disgusting losses b/c NY and MIL have their best player more healthy but the only team playing well is Orlando and they will have a desperate Bucks team twice, so we’ll see.
it’s a train wreck.
Garland looks to be distributing at least. He’s got 7 assists w 2 TOs
i don’t hate these games from him. shot diet is ok, he’s just missing more than you want. he’s cut way back on the careless stuff.
he would have to be god mode to beat KD and Booker having 72 and the Suns making 25/52 threes on a road back-to-back.
but, our or hopeful theory that Garland would turn into a superstar has not gotten much traction for a long time.
he might only be a mix of mike conley and deaaron fox. that’s OK — he may not sniff another ASG appearance with Mitchell here but he can still be amazing as a game manager and pass-first PG.
Hope Max gets the triple double b/c lol
Strus and LeVert TO’s in this game just killer.
I actually think Garland should be benched for the 4th quarter. Give him as many mins as possible for the first 3. But he has earned zero mins after that. He needs a full time PG coordinator to coach him. A certain former Cav comes to mind. Mark Price where are you????!!!!
we need somebody to help when Vert is having a night like this (4 TOs in the first quarter???)
DG mid, but Vert awful.
Fair enough but sam merrill should not be playing zero mins in a game where we are offensively challenged and also in a game where spacing is an issue because the opponent is long.
Apologies…merril should get some of DG’s mins to clarify. Esp on a back to back. Mitchell was plenty capable of distributing when garland went down early.
Wait wtaf that is a garbage overturn. That is clearly a foul.
JA has a better floater then LeVert, Okoro and Strus combined. It’s kinda sad.
Its kinda sick. The sad part is he doesnt get 15 shots a game cuz we arent playing fast enough anyway
Agree.
This is a very typical game between two teams with something to prove. The talent is winning cuz the team with the continuity is coached by a simpleton.
continuity???? this is the 25th game with the starters
and they have two one man offenses — we have DM managing a knee injury.
i hate this game but i’m not sure there’s a story
With an entire season with this team last year and three seasons with the core. Are you out here telling me JB was right to bench our best 3pt shooter in favor of running two shrimps at guard against a tall ass phx team?
i’m saying it doesn’t matter. we lose by 12 if you are right, and we lost by 19 anyways.
so much had to go right for this to be competitive. we got some nice games from DM and Mobley in shifts. On to LA
Caris and strus have both had rough games but are at least trying and moving. Allen is invisible…Sam is benched for no reason…and JB is riding Garland and mitchell together for seemingly no reason. We have a SG with size for defense JB. Choose one shorty or the other and get some freaking space for them to drive and kick
WISH WE COULD GO BACK TO “ JANUARY “
LeVert has lost the ball like 4 times tonight.
Garland just missed two point blank layups.
Suns shooting 62% from 3, we shooting 32%.
wow.
Durant and Booker just mean. wish we had Ice and Wade